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[jlhoots]

Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing 

[A Lark Ascending]

7 hours ago, rdavenport said:

Good point, and at least part of the reason I never finished, among other fat books, Bleak House, The Brothers Karamazov and Atlas Shrugged. My copy of the latter went everywhere with me for about six months, until I could take no more and abandoned it in a hotel room in York.

To paraphrase the cricket commentator David Lloyd, "Start the car...short book's a good book"

I had my second attempt at Moby Dick a few months and had to give up after 300 pages or so. Still not found the bloody whale. 

As it happens, after my initial enthusiasm for 'Our Man in Havana' I'm now finding it very tiresome. The 'comedy' is lost on me and much of the dialogue seems quite wooden - I had a similar reaction to Waugh's 'Decline and Fall' when I read it a while back. Probably hilarious in their time or if you are able to re-enter that particular past universe. Determined to finish it as it's short but I'm only managing a chapter each day - 70 pages to go!

This, on the other hand, is fascinating:

 

Explains in a straightforward way what lies behind some of the major international issues of the day in geopolitical terms. Particularly interesting on Putin's reasons for his actions in the Ukraine and China's naval expansion; also does a very good job summarising that complexities of the various rivalries withing the Middle East.  

[Leeway]

interesting to see how far Fitzgerald traveled from "The Beautiful and Damned" (1922). A beautifully wrought taIe of decline. 

[BillF]

Continuing my return to Fitzgerald. A little masterpiece IMHO.

[Leeway]

Continuing my survey of F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, this is my 3rd or 4th time around with Gatsby, and I still find it a rewarding read. 

[ghost of miles]

[ejp626]

I finished Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City (NYRB).  The title story/novella was ok and I really liked the short story "Sealed Off."  The remaining novellas were fairly forgettable.

I'm midway through Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go.  It was certainly blown up in certain quarters, but in my opinion, it doesn't live up to the hype.  I'll probably finish it, though a bit grudgingly.

 

Edited August 28, 2016 by ejp626

[ejp626]

19 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I'm midway through Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go.  It was certainly blown up in certain quarters, but in my opinion, it doesn't live up to the hype.  I'll probably finish it, though a bit grudgingly.

 

I changed my mind.  It is just one damn thing after another.  Trouble follows this family from Africa to America and back to Africa.  Just too damn much for this reader to take.  Life really is too short to spent it reading books that you don't enjoy at least a little.

I should say that while there were certainly plenty of feel-bad events in Lawrence Hill's A Book of Negroes, it was better written and more compelling.

 

[Leeway]

One senses much posturing, or at least performing, in this work, but what a performance it is! The ending is eerie in that it presages the author's own end. It's been interesting to revisit these Lost Generation classics. 

[BillF]

2 hours ago, Leeway said:

One senses much posturing, or at least performing, in this work, but what a performance it is! The ending is eerie in that it presages the author's own end. It's been interesting to revisit these Lost Generation classics. 

Might return to that sometime, not least because I've been learning Spanish for six months! 

[BillF]

Continuing my review of the best of Penelope Fitzgerald ...

[paul secor]

John Dufresne: Love Warps the Mind a Little

[A Lark Ascending]

Fascinating book. Most books based on specific years tend to be music based. Lots of music in this but roams widely over all manner of cultural areas from the Beeching cuts through T.S. Eliot to Bridget Riley, the Moors Murders, 'Blow Up' and Roy Jenkins' (and others) social reforms. Argues that '65 was the year modernism found its foot in English popular culture (as opposed to being something that only the elite dabbled in). Also argues the point I first came across in Ian MacDonald's book on the Beatles that the counter-culture and the later Thatcherites, rather than being on either side of the 'permissive' divide, were actually part of the same cultural trend - the abandonment of collectivism in favour of more ego driven individualism. 

Does, unfortunately, go on a rant against the introduction of comprehensive schools, spinning the old Tory myths about how grammar schools helped poor children get a foot into the upper echelons. There's acres of evidence suggesting the opposite but that doesn't seem to have killed the myth (as it looks like we're about to see with our current government). Hardly surprising in a year that has demonstrated more than ever the power of emotively expressed notions over cold evidence.   

Edited September 3, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[Royal Oak]

That looks quite interesting. I remember reading a newspaper article a few years ago, dating the beginning of the demise of British society not to 1979 / Margaret Thatcher, as is often promulgated, but the year 1966. I wish I could remember the source..

Edited September 3, 2016 by rdavenport

[A Lark Ascending]

It's a book where you enjoy the journey but I'm not sure what he thinks in the end. At times he seems enthusiastic for the changes, at other times fogeyish. I don't think he lived through the period. I find it really odd reading books about the 60s and 70s written by people like Sandbrook and Bray who came of age some time later. Not sure why. Most history books are written by people who weren't there. 

Have my eye on this one next:

Imagine we will be deluged in the next couple of years with 67 and 68 books (the two most mythologised years of the 60s for different reasons).

(The 'year that changed Britain' seems to be in dispute. We also have:

)

 

Edited September 4, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

3 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

I find it really odd reading books about the 60s and 70s written by people like Sandbrook and Bray who came of age some time later. 

 

 

 

I feel much the same way about books like Simon Spillett's - admittedly brilliant - biography of Tubby Hayes. Simon is the acknowledged expert - justifiably I think - on Tubby Hayes, but he never heard him play, while I, just an ordinary Joe Soap in the jazz world, heard him play many, many times.But I will grant Simon this - he did seem interested in my recollections of his idol.

[Jazzjet]

13 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

It's a book where you enjoy the journey but I'm not sure what he thinks in the end. At times he seems enthusiastic for the changes, at other times fogeyish. I don't think he lived through the period. I find it really odd reading books about the 60s and 70s written by people like Sandbrook and Bray who came of age some time later. Not sure why. Most history books are written by people who weren't there. 

Have my eye on this one next:

Imagine we will be deluged in the next couple of years with 67 and 68 books (the two most mythologised years of the 60s for different reasons).

(The 'year that changed Britain' seems to be in dispute. We also have:

)

 

I've got the Jon Savage book but it's on my ever-growing 'to read' pile. I'm not sure that there's much of a case for 1956 being the 'year that changed Britain'. It certainly saw the early stages of the birth of the teenager (skiffle, Elvis, Lonnie Donegan etc) but it was all fairly self-contained. I'm surprised that more isn't made of the claims for 1963 with the explosion of Merseybeat, pirate radio, the Profumo scandal (and the breakdown of deference), the Lady Chatterley trial, the Great Train Robbery etc. But maybe there was a book and I missed it. Perhaps the truth is that every year changed Britain in some way.

[BillF]

2 hours ago, Jazzjet said:

I'm not sure that there's much of a case for 1956 being the 'year that changed Britain'. 

Suez?

Hungary?

Look Back in Anger?

Rock Around the Clock?

[ejp626]

I'm about halfway through James Clifford's Routes, which is an anthropological study of travel and dislocation.  It is quite similar to most modern anthropology tracts/treatises in that it is written in academicese.  I think it is quite possible that the last anthropologist who could write for a general public was Clifford Geertz.

I'm also starting Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.

[A Lark Ascending]

10 hours ago, BillF said:

Suez?

Hungary?

Look Back in Anger?

Rock Around the Clock?

Yes, that is what I was thinking too. The year the dream of Empire came crashing down and the year the idea of the 'special relationship' was revealled publically as little more than window dressing (2016 or 17 might well be a reminder!). 

You could do 'important year' books on most years (and be very controversial by picking a non-obvious one - I'd go for 1955 because I was born then; I'm sure I could construct some arguments from events of that year). Most popular history is inevitably written in linear form - 1945-73, 1815-1914 etc. These year books do serve a useful purpose in slicing down through a very compact period and they tend to be particularly good at covering areas of social history that otherwise might get passed by. I'm not convinced you can assess significance particularly well that way but they make for good reads. A very good one from ten years or so back (maybe it started the trend) was Mark Kurlansky's ' 1968: The Year that Rocked the World.' A year I remember as a 13 year old only just starting to become aware of world affairs (I was convinced World War III was going to break out in August) - I was amazed by how much I had no memory of. 

23 hours ago, BillF said:

I feel much the same way about books like Simon Spillett's - admittedly brilliant - biography of Tubby Hayes. Simon is the acknowledged expert - justifiably I think - on Tubby Hayes, but he never heard him play, while I, just an ordinary Joe Soap in the jazz world, heard him play many, many times.But I will grant Simon this - he did seem interested in my recollections of his idol.

Perennial problem. Who knows most about the Battle of the Somme? The soldier who survived the trenches or the historian 100 years later?  The latter wasn't there but the former only saw a fraction of what went on. From what you say Spillett is doing what a good historian will do - constantly taking in fresh primary evidence and adjusting opinions accordingly. Bet you didn't think you were primary evidence. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

2 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Yes, that is what I was thinking too. The year the dream of Empire came crashing down and the year the idea of the 'special relationship' was revealled publically as little more than window dressing (2016 or 17 might well be a reminder!). 

You could do 'important year' books on most years (and be very controversial by picking a non-obvious one - I'd go for 1955 because I was born then; I'm sure I could construct some arguments from events of that year). Most popular history is inevitably written in linear form - 1945-73, 1815-1914 etc. These year books do serve a useful purpose in slicing down through a very compact period and they tend to be particularly good at covering areas of social history that otherwise might get passed by. I'm not convinced you can assess significance particularly well that way but they make for good reads. A very good one from ten years or so back (maybe it started the trend) was Mark Kurlansky's ' 1968: The Year that Rocked the World.' A year I remember as a 13 year old only just starting to become aware of world affairs (I was convinced World War III was going to break out in August) - I was amazed by how much I had no memory of. 

Perennial problem. Who knows most about the Battle of the Somme? The soldier who survived the trenches or the historian 100 years later?  The latter wasn't there but the former only saw a fraction of what went on. From what you say Spillett is doing what a good historian will do - constantly taking in fresh primary evidence and adjusting opinions accordingly. Bet you didn't think you were primary evidence. 

Well, I don't appear in the acknowledgements page. 

[A Lark Ascending]

Oh dear! Academic not citing his sources. The book clearly wasn't peer reviewed!  

[Jazzjet]

20 hours ago, BillF said:

Suez?

Hungary?

Look Back in Anger?

Rock Around the Clock?

Yes, all important events but how many of them had an impact on society as a whole. I remember my parents taking in a couple of Hungarian refugees and me learning to play table tennis (and enjoy goulash) but I'm not sure it changed the way society behaved. The same with Suez, although it might have hastened the process of public mistrust of politicians. The impact of 'Look Back In Anger' was probably limited to the liberal elite. There's more of an argument for 'Rock Around The Clock' which did have a real impact on popular culture, as did skiffle. It probably did a lot to raise the profile of the teenage, although not in a positive way.

[A Lark Ascending]

Large coffee table book I bought some years back and only just got round to actually reading. Helped put the pictures I am aware of in context but rather dry. The author is a custodian of some sort at the Tate. Over-relies on lengthy quotations (to be fair he does say he intends to do this in the intro) and has rather more than I needed to know about his business practices. Had my work cut out distinguishing my picturesque from my beautiful and sublime. 

Brilliant pictures of course, especially towards the end. Though it would seem that some of those semi-abstract pieces were just foundations that he would eventually add the detail to in the gallery but never got round to. 

Short but informative book. Had no time for Minimalism until about ten years back (apart from Adams whose neo-Romanticism struck chords much earlier). This book gave me some pointers on where to look beyond the few things I have (Spotify has been well used today). A 1996 book so misses more recent developments. The author is essentially very keen on Reich, less so on Glass after the mid-70s (which, from what I've read, is the authorised interpretation). 

Edited September 7, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[Leeway]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, for the jazz age and the post-WWI generation. Touches of brilliance but rather uneven too.